Pop Goes the Artist!

It’s hitting crunch time at school (exams start on Monday), so it’s time for a cop-out links post.  Hard-hitting social commentary will just have to wait until later.

• Part of the problem I have with trying to sketch every day is that I run out of things to draw–or at least, I feel like I do.  After all, I spend most of my time in the same tiny dorm room, surrounded by the same objects that have surrounded me since freshman year.  Times like those, I turn to lists of sketching challenges like this one from Flickr’s Everyday Matters group.  Sometimes it takes outside prompting to look at a familiar object in a different light.
• This isn’t exactly art-related, but I think it will come in handy when/if I ever set up an Etsy shop for my crafty projects as well as my art.  The photography blog Strobist posted instructions for making an effective “photo studio” for under $10.
• I love retro, pop-art stuff, particularly old advertising and illustrations.  This photoset on Flickr includes more than 500 matchbox labels, mostly from Eastern Europe in the 50s and 60s.  There are some really cute ones.
• Along those same lines, here’s a collection of really over-the-top romance and “good girl” comic book covers, featuring some fantastic, super-pulpy illustrations.  As a bonus, the cover copy is frequently hilarious.  (A little more poking around on the same site reveals a gallery of superhero and war comics as well as some crime and horror comics.  Gold!)
• Spam subject lines are almost always hilarious.  They’re even better made into funky hand-lettered artwork.  Here’s the photoset on Flickr and here’s where you can buy prints.  Too bad I just spent too much money buying prints on Etsy…
• I occasionally dabble in book arts, but I have a full-time obsession with beautiful paper, notebooks, pens, etc.  PaperStudio.com sells beautiful paper as well as other tools and supplies for all your bookbinding, collage-making, obsessively admiring needs.  I particularly love the chiyogami Japanese paper.

That’s all for now.  I really should work on making flashcards for my art history final.  Those Gothic cathedrals are beautiful, but they do all look awfully similar to each other.

On rainy mornings, my first waking thought is not “Oh no, it’s raining,” but rather, “All right! Now I get to wear my cute rainboots!” Never underestimate the life-changing power of a good pair of shoes.

Today was not a rainy morning, but my rainboots were sitting on my floor anyway, so I decided to sketch one of them. The proportions are a little bit funky, clearly, but I think I did pretty well with the colors. (As always, click the thumbnail to enlarge it.)

In other news, it’s only two more weeks until the semester’s over and I can get home and paint! I already have a mile-long list of paintings to finish and crafty projects to do. Luckily, my break is a full month long, so I might get half of them done.

It’s the classic criticism of abstract art.  Give a five-year-old some finger paints and a big canvas, people claim, and he too could have one-man shows and high-paying collectors.

Don’t be so sure.  “Childish” and “child-like” are not the same.  I saw an exhibit once that displayed the work of children alongside that of trained adult artists.  The difference was striking and instantly recognizable, and these were artists whose paintings frequently hear the “childish” accusation.  The motifs were similar, but the differences lay in the execution.

Speaking from my own limited experience, abstraction is easy.  Successful abstraction is hard.  Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.  As Pablo Picasso said, “It takes a long time to become young.”

The other day I took a trip to the National Shrine to see a concert for class. On a whim, I brought my Moleskine,* and so I was able to spend a lovely two hours listening to fantastic music and sketching beautiful architecture.

I love sketching architectural forms–the geometry, clear lines, and strong perspectives appeal to me. But, as these three small, ballpoint sketches show, I’m a little out of practice. Which sounds to me like a good excuse to seek out beautiful buildings to draw. (Click the photo to see it larger.)

*I like my Moleskine, but I don’t understand the almost fanatical devotion they seem to generate. They do come in convenient purse-and-pocket sizes, and I love that they’re hardcover, but they’re awfully expensive. (Mine was a favor at I wedding I once worked at.) I’ll enjoy mine while it lasts, but I doubt I’ll replace it.

“In spite of everything, I shall rise again: I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, and I will go on with my drawing.” (Vincent van Gogh)

And that’s what I’m doing. I’m exaggerating, obviously: I have had times of great discouragement in my life, but the past few months have not been among them. No, I just stopped making art a priority in my life, and consequently left behind this blog as well. A few days ago, I realized that I wasn’t happy with that. So here I am.

The problem, of course, when I stop making art, is that it’s a self-perpetuating thing. The longer I go without it, the more reluctant I am to pick it up again, because the first few sketches after a long time away are always clumsy. The part I forget is how good they feel, despite the awkwardness.

Yesterday I had a craving for color, so I picked up my markers and turned for inspiration to a postcard of a stained glass window from Chartres Cathedral. My rendition doesn’t do it justice, partially because I don’t really have the right colors in my pencil case, and partially because marker on paper cannot even approximate the glow of light and glass. Not in my hands, anyway. (Click on the image to make it larger.)

(I also, incidentally, discovered the secret to achieving flat color with markers, which tend to leave those sketchy overlap lines: multiple layers. Why didn’t I think of that ten years ago?)